Last Call

As soon as I woke up this morning, I reminded myself to call Uncle Joe.

Sunday is the day I usually call my dad’s younger brother in Los Angeles to get the latest on the West Coast branch of the Lenihans.

And then I remembered I couldn’t call Uncle Joe today—or any other day. Joe died on Wednesday and so the last member of my father’s family left this world on the first of the new year.

Joe was in his nineties and in failing health, but it’s hard to believe that I won’t be talking with him on the phone anymore or seeing him when I go out there for a visit.

My sister and I have been staying with Joe and his wife Sara for so many years now. They took us all over the place to see the sites and meet up with our cousins.

If I recall—and don’t quote me--I first went out there in the late Eighties when I was living in Pennsylvania.

Joe and I had trouble finding each other when I arrived in LAX, but we met up and I sat in the back seat of his car recovering from my post-flight trauma while he and Sara discussed the seemingly endless list of possible routes home.

One of my earliest memories of visiting their home was helping Joe put up Christmas decorations wearing shorts and a t-shirt. That wouldn’t work so well in Brooklyn.

Family History

During our drive out to Yosemite National Park, Joe told me that his dad—my grandfather—had been an honest-to-God cowboy in Texas, which I had never heard before and still have a hard time believing.

Joe used to tell us about the old neighborhood in Upper Manhattan where the whole bunch—was it 11 kids?—all grew up, and he shared stories about my father when he was a young man.

My father fought in Europe during World War II and after he returned to New York, his division was transported out to a miliary base in Washington State to train for planned invasion of Japan.

The atom bomb attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki changed all that and Joe said my dad had called him from the base where he was training.

“He said, ‘I guess we’re not going,’” Joe told me. “He was tired. And this would’ve made D-Day look like a picnic.

The last time I was out there I caught Covid and I had to finish my vacation at a motel in Glendale to avoid infecting Joe and Sara.

“The next time you come out here try not to get sick,” he said during one of our phone calls.

Like my dad, Joe liked to yank your chain. It’s really cold here in New York today and I know that if Joe were here to receive my phone call, he’d make sure to tell me about the beautiful warm weather in Los Angeles.

There’s so much I want to know about father’s family, so many questions that will go unanswered.

I’m so thankful we had Joe in our lives for as long as we did. Rest in peace, Uncle Joe. I’m sure going to miss those phone calls.